The Avengers' Days Off
by delusionalDaydreamer
Summary: or When Six Idiots with Superpowers Run Amok. The overused yet constantly amusing Domesticated Avengers just casually blowing shit up in their free time. Short one-shots in no chronology, whatsoever. Humor/Bromance/Fluff Warnings: may include Monopoly induced aggression and PSAs on how not to do things.
1. Avengers vs Monopoly

It had been Clint's idea. After all this time, they should have known better than to agree to any of Clint's ideas. Still, game night had sounded innocent enough. They just shouldn't have let Barton pick the board game.

"I do not understand. The goal of the game is to collect these tiny buildings?"

Clint snatched the small hotel out of Thor's paws, returning it to the box. "In a way, yes. But it's mostly about the cash," he explained, settling comfortably by the table. "Get rich or die trying." Tony snorted.

"I'm still not sure that I want to play…"

Bruce winced at the slap to his back. "Nonsense, Banner. This will be great fun," Thor practically exclaimed, hyped by the arrival of beers via Natasha.

"Do I get dibs on 58th and Broadway since I already, y'know, own most of the buildings there?" Tony inquired. The chair he was rocking on was making a delightful squeaking noise and he could see it was already starting to bother at least half of the team.

"Let's just start this, shall we?" Natasha pushed. She had a bad feeling about this, amped up by the gleeful look on Clint's face.

Everyone accepted their wad of fake cash, handed off by Barton, who, of course, had demanded to be the banker. After Tony's suggestion to spice up the game was shot down ("I'm just saying, it's way more fun playing for real money."), Clint brought up the game pieces.

"Banker gets first pick," he claimed as he chose the dog for himself. The others leaned over the table, peering at the tiny, metallic objects.

"Hey, Romanoff. Misogynistic joke." Tony tossed her the tiny flatiron, grinning widely.

"Oh, please. You of all people missed the _Iron_ man pun?" she replied, flicking the piece into the back of Tony's head. Eventually (after a few minor spats) everyone settled with their piece. Thor went with 'the strange, one-wheeled cart that looks like a small chariot,' Natasha settled for the hat, Steve with the flatiron after Tony and Natasha had refused to stop throwing it around, Stark took 'the Stark mobile' and Bruce warily picked up the thimble once everyone else had gotten theirs.

"Alright, who wants first roll?"

…

"You did something to the dice! There's no way in he- I mean, he obviously tampered with the dice!"

"Relax, Cap. You're giving Barton's brain way too much credit."

"Big words coming from someone who just fell into debt, Mister Stark."

"Watch it, Merida."

"Don't you think we've been playing for long enou-"

"On the contrary! You are just being a sore loser."

"Well, I've landed in jail seven times…"

"Thor, I told you to stop banging on the table- Get your hand off my hat!"

"If you get _your_ hands off _my_ chariot."

"I was putting it back in place because your testosterone knocked all the pieces down!"

"Will someone just roll the damn dice?"

"Steve! Language!"

"Guys, seriously, let's just pack the game up and relax. We're all adults here."

"I think I'm going to invest in a hotel here…"

"…"

"You better start running, Barton."

"Tony, you are not getting in that suit."

"Come on, Tash. Let him try his worst."

"You asked for it, Tweetie."

"I'll just be in the meditation room."

"Steve, where are you going with that shield?"

"I had no idea your Earth games were so violent and amusing!"

…..

The smell of smoke still lingered in the air, along with a few stray feathers that still floated around; the remains of the massacred pillows.

"You mean to tell me that my Friday night was ruined because you idiots thought it would be a good idea to play Monopoly?"

"Actually, it was Clint's-"

"I don't _care_ whose idea it was, Stark. I care that I had to spend my evening off, breaking up a fight between four grown men."

The four grown men in question averted their eyes from Fury's stinging gaze but the pleased glint in Barton's eyes was very visible to Natasha's trained eye.

"Even you, Rogers."

Steve glanced up, looking like a kicked puppy.

"Now, can I leave to try and enjoy the rest of my evening or am I risking the four of you singlehandedly starting World War III?"

"We shall behave," Thor mumbled, looking quite humorous hunched up with the others on the tiny sofa, seeing as the big one had been thrown out the window earlier.

"Good." Nick gave a curt nod to Natasha before walking towards the elevators. "And clean this place up, _stupid, childish, sad excuse for adults. It's like a group of five year olds with superpowers…_ " The elevator doors shut on his rambling and Bruce's head popped around the corner. His eyes widened behind his glasses once he took in the living room.

"You should see the kitchen," Clint muttered under his breath, earning a light punch from Tony.

"Don't you dare," Natasha warned and the four men skittered off in different directions.

Bruce strolled through the sea of feathers on the floor, looking around at the destruction.

"So… what did you do with the game?"

"Let's just say that this tower will never see another game of Monopoly. Ever. Now, I think I deserve a beer." Natasha tossed something over to Bruce before vanishing into the kitchen. Turning it around in his hand, he smiled at the tiny thimble. "Next time, feel free to let the other guy bash them around a bit."

Bruce laughed. "Why? I ended up winning the game."

Somewhere from behind a locked door, shouts of disbelief carried into the living room, along with demands of a rematch.


	2. Did Someone Say Cake?

If you were to search the Avengers' house for the most neglected item, it would most likely be the oven. Seeing as the kitchen was probably the most frequented place in the whole tower, it was a shame that no one had ever bothered to try out the high-tech and shiny oven. Until today.

"I can't even find the knob to set the temperature."

"Of course you can't. Do you really think that anything in my tower is controlled by _knobs_?" Tony strutted over to where Bruce was crouched, peering at the dark and shiny exterior of the oven. Which had no knobs. Or anything else, for that matter. "Jarvis, light her up."

"Yes, sir."

The oven glowed to life, and a screen showing the rising temperature appeared. "See? Knobs on an oven… Get your head out of the 20s, Brucie."

Bruce rolled his eyes endearingly, straightening up and looking around the kitchen. "So… where do we begin?" he asked, joining Tony where he loomed over the open cookbook.

"You're telling me Bruce Banner has never baked a birthday cake?"

"Well, between my time destroying Harlem, hiding in India and fighting aliens from other dimensions, my time for hobbies has been cut down significantly," he retorted, eyes meanwhile scanning the recipe as he tried to convince himself that this couldn't be too hard.

"Yeah, yeah, we've all heard the tragic history of Banner, you're not competing for pity points here," Tony shot back. "Besides, how different can this be from simple chemistry?" Bruce didn't look very optimistic but then again, he also sort of just had one of those faces that always looked like doom was imminent.

Tony started fiddling around with hidden compartments in the counters, pushing things out of the way and bringing out a much-too-big mixer. Bruce trailed behind him, cookbook in hand, reading over the instructions. "It says we need to sift the dry ingredients – do we even own a sifter?" Tony waved a hand at him as a gesture to keep going. "And melt the chocolate and butter via a bain-marie – they also use that for baking?"

"If you're going to take forever to read the recipe," Tony sighed, snatching the book away, "then I'm interfering. Let me see… Simple, simple, we can probably skip that, not quite sure what that is." Tossing the book back at Bruce, who barely prevented it from hitting him in the face, Tony cracked his fingers and opened up the mixer. "We're going to make the best damn chocolate cake ever."

Bruce's sigh went ignored as Tony started gathering ingredients, nearly running over his fellow Avenger in the progress. "Let's just try not to set anything on fire."

The flour bag coughed up its insides as Tony dropped it onto the counter, a wide grin on his face. "Now where would the fun in that be?"

…

"Guys? You in here? Nat just called, she'll be here with Steve in like half an hou-oooly fuck." Clint snorted, staring at the mess that used to be their kitchen. "What- Do I even want to know? What am I saying, of course I do. What the hell were you guys doing?"

Bruce frowned, ruffling up his hair and coughing as flour, baking powder and practically half of a cake drifted down into his face. "Are those chemical test tubes?"

"Actually, that's a beaker. And that's a Buchner funnel. And I'm sure we had a round-bottom boiling flask here somewhere…" Tony disappeared from sight as he ducked behind a counter, rattling something unseen on the floor.

Slowly, Clint dared closer, raising his eyebrows at the smudges of buttercream icing, chocolate and flour that seemed to cover every inch of the kitchen and its inhabitants. And then he noticed the six different cakes next to the stack of cakes that looked burnt to the crisp and the pile of cake crumbs. "What…" he inquired with a point of his fingers to the ones that looked like the survivors of an explosion.

"Tony thought it would be smart and quick to use his thrusters for baking," Bruce explained, going slightly cross-eyed as he realized there was a smudge of chocolate sitting on his nose.

"I still stand by that theory," came Tony's disembodied voice right before he popped back into view.

"Did you bring the whole lab in here?" Clint wondered, dipping a finger into a huge bowl of icing and licking it off.

Bruce's 'most of it' was drowned out by Tony's casual 'nope.'

"And now you have six cakes?"

Another jinx as Tony claimed that it was fine while Bruce pointed at the other, claiming it was entirely his fault.

"Stay still, I just need to…" Clint's camera phone clicked, Tony grinning widely at the lens. "There. Now, Nat and Steve will be here in-" he mock glanced at his watch, "-any minute, and I have a "Happy 97th birthday, you fossil" banner to hang up so you guys should really get cleani-"

Clint was cut off as he felt something gooey fall into his hair, run down his neck and under his T-shirt.

"4 and a half minutes," Tony stated with an unwavering expression, watching Clint cringe with poorly hidden amusement.

"Eggs," Bruce answered before Clint had even gotten out the first syllable of his question. The archer's eyes moved upwards to see a few raw ones stuck onto the ceiling. "Testing how long they would stick. Again, Stark's idea."

"Riiight. I'm taking a shower and you're both idiots."

"Tell that to our huge IQs and amazing cakes!" Tony shouted after him, sticking a frosting covered finger into his mouth. "So, I'm thinking a six-layered cake – wait, wait, hear me out…"

…..

"Surprise!"

Steve's eyes widened in, yes, surprise, as the elevator doors opened and he was greeted with his teammates and a towering cake that looked somewhat ready to fall over.

"Damn it, at his age, I was so sure he'd have a heart attack. We'll have to try harder next year, gang." Tony forced a party horn into Steve's mouth, giving him a thumbs up.

"Please, there's like a 100% more chance that you'll go belly up before Cap," Clint intervened, glancing at the wobbly cake in his peripheral vision, prepared to step away in case it toppled.

"Can we maybe not discuss which one of us will be the first to die at a birthday party?" Natasha sighed but the smallest of smirks was detectable on her lips.

"Right, we should save that for Christmas," Tony mused, followed by mock complaints as the party horn was chucked back at him.

Steve walked over to the cake, smiling as he took in the various colors of frosting, hastily smudged onto the six layers. "There's, uh, one for each team member," Bruce explained, Clint snorting a laugh somewhere behind them, earning him a pinch from Natasha. "Had to fight Tony to get yours on top."

"The man can't even fly, it makes perfect sense that I be on top," Tony explained casually, snapping a party hat onto Steve's head.

"It looks great," Steve said earnestly, smiling at his friends. "You really didn't have to go through all this trouble for me."

Tony scoffed. "For you? We just wanted the cake and an excuse to throw a party with booze. Besides, it was no trouble at all. Along with everything else I pursue, I exceeded at baking."

Bruce cleared his throat. "And Banner may have helped. A little."

"I mostly prevented him from burning the house down," Bruce muttered to Steve and Natasha, earning a pair of fond smiles.

The elevator doors slid open, a few guests filing into the room behind Thor, who was carrying six bags of snacks, drinks and what looked like confetti. "Now the celebrations can commence!" he boomed, dropping the bags onto the ground to give Steve a heavy pat on his back.

"I'll go get something under the snacks." Natasha grabbed two of the bags and headed for the kitchen while Tony and Bruce exchanged a look. Clint caught it and quirked an eyebrow.

"You didn't clean up the kitchen?" he asked, the question followed by a surprised yelp from the kitchen.

"Are those _eggs_ on the ceiling?!"

"It was all Banner!"

"Shut up, Stark."


End file.
